


Oh Gertrude! Oh Albert!

by sapphire_child



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Community: then_theres_us, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Going to the movies, This is so adorable, Time Travel, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, like holy fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-12
Updated: 2010-09-12
Packaged: 2019-01-28 20:59:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12615368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire_child/pseuds/sapphire_child
Summary: They land in the heyday of the silent movie (not that they were ever really silent, the Doctor points out smugly. What with the music and all...) and somehow manage to jag an empty cinema – bar the piano player of course. He is dutifully plunking away to the flickering image of an old fashioned Western – complete with wailing damsel in distress tied to the train tracks and a moustache twirling baddie.





	Oh Gertrude! Oh Albert!

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: MORE fluff? From ME? WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY MUSE?! I think I still have one more fic in me for this challenge. We shall see if I can get it finished by the deadline (by which I mean, I'm going to write until I fall asleep and then get up early to finish it before I go shopping for tea with my grandmother :P)  
> Prompted by [](https://housemaid79.livejournal.com/profile)[](https://housemaid79.livejournal.com/)**housemaid79** : _And sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea; What are all these kissings worth, If thou kiss not me?_ , Rose needs glasses, Silent Film

They land in the heyday of the silent movie (not that they were ever really silent, the Doctor points out smugly. What with the music and all...) and somehow manage to jag an empty cinema – bar the piano player of course. He is dutifully plunking away to the flickering image of an old fashioned Western – complete with wailing damsel in distress tied to the train tracks and a moustache twirling baddie.

Rose laughs her head off, quite enchanted with the silliness of it all, and the Doctor grins when she cheers the baddy’s capture, applauding and wolf whistling the kiss at the end between the goodie and the leading lady.

“She was a bit useless though wasn’t she?” Rose comments as the credits roll. She is on her feet and about to skip out when the Doctor realises that they’ve wandered into a double feature and he drags her up to the back row, just below the little window where the projectionist sits.

“Can’t see,” she grumbles, squinting at the screen as the next feature begins. “Is is my eyes or is it just cos the film’s dodgy?”

“Dunno. Both?” the Doctor suggests and glibly offers her his spectacles. Laughing, she carefully positions them on her nose and even though she can’t see much better with them on she won’t give them back when he asks for them.

Their second feature is (of all things) a romance. The good old boy meets girl and is smitten, girl is uncertain but boy declares his love for her up and down and to the moon, girl falls in love with him and it all ends with a kiss – roll credits.

They’re barely into the courtship however when Rose (unable to read the titles and dissatisfied with what she _can_ make out) decides to make up her own story to go along with it instead.

“Oh _Gertrude_!” Rose intones dramatically. “I lovest thou more than my mum’s cream cheese pudding! I lovest thou more than I lovest cherries an’ flowers an’...”

“Oh _Albert_!” the Doctor cuts in with a screeching falsetto that has Rose clutching her sides, tears of mirth rolling down her cheeks. “I lovest thou more than clean socks! I lovest thou more than the moon! More even, than _chips with vinegar_!”

Rose gasps mockingly. “And salt?” she presses but she starts laughing so hard that it comes out choked.

“Even with salt!” he trills and she collapses back into giggles again.

But then they reach the part when the girl refuses the hero and he appeals to her quietly, with desperation, and the Doctor finds himself quite unexpectedly blurting out a mouthful of Shelley.

“ _Nothing in the world is single_ ,” he begins softly and Rose stills, her laughter fading into uncertain silence. “ _All things by law divine, in one spirit meet and mingle – why not I with thine_?”

He tapers off then, eyes sliding sideways to gauge her reaction but Rose looks nothing short of enraptured.

“Keep goin’!” she urges when it seems like he might stop. Caught between embarrassment and bemusement, he does so.

“ _See the mountains kiss high Heaven, and the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven, if it disdained its brother..._ ” he hesitates here but Rose is completely ignoring the screen where the lovers are puckering up for their big finale. She is actually _leaning_ towards him, her whole body seemingly yearning for his. He aches, gripping the arm rests so that he won’t reach out and pull her in – to close that final distance between them.

“ _And sunlight clasps the earth..._ ” he murmurs and he can see the strain in her every muscle as she holds herself up (holds herself back). “ _...and the moonbeams kiss the sea. What are all these kissings worth..._ ” he swallows, eyes surreptitiously dropping to her lips, so close to his... “ _If thou kiss not me?_ ”

For a moment Rose sits, star struck and a little dazed, and then she offers him something that’s almost an apology.

“Nobody’s ever quoted poetry for me before.”

On screen the lovers are locked in a passionate embrace. The Doctor is only vaguely aware of this out of his peripheral vision as he gazes at Rose, his glasses sitting slightly askew on her upturned nose. On impulse, he reaches out and straightens them with almost tender gentleness.

And then the house lights come up.

The piano player is already packing up his sheet music as they realise that they are, in fact, in the real world and yes, there are other people that inhabit it with them. Rose jumps up, looking almost embarrassed and charges off like a mad thing. The Doctor rejoins her at the exit, catches her hand and (ignoring her look of surprise) leans down to press a kiss to the tip of her nose.

She turns a delicious shade of pink at the gesture but grins and then gentle places her hands on either side of his head – ostensibly so she can return the kiss.

He is only mildly surprised when she doesn’t touch her lips to his nose at all.

“Oh Gertrude...” he sighs against her lips, not expecting her to hear.

“Oh _Albert_.” She chuckles wickedly and, taking the Doctor firmly by the hand, drags him running through the foyer, past the startled ticket vendor and into the vast, bright, shining world.


End file.
